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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380717">Panageis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wealcomplete/pseuds/wealcomplete'>wealcomplete</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eleusinian Mysteries (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore), Other, various smallfolk and septas, women's wisdom, women's work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:48:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,434</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380717</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wealcomplete/pseuds/wealcomplete</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, she never even leaves the Westerlands. </p><p>Tysha survives Casterly Rock, and finds sanctuary outside of Lannisport. She heals, she learns, she studies, and she becomes something more than a hero's tragic first love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tyrion Lannister/Tysha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Panageis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Her husband and good-father depart, Tyrion's face stony with shock and pain, Tywin's face stoic with the satisfaction of a lesson learned. She is left to die on her piles of silver and her one gold coin. The barracks are empty now, but soon the guards will return. Tysha feels the earthen cool of the Rock beneath her. Every part of her is in pain, her whole body is pulverized, crushed, ground into pebbles and sand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A fortnight ago, on her wedding night, she had learned every secret of pleasure from her body. Giddy with the joy of rescue, of love and awe pouring from her husband's mismatched eyes, the days and nights had unfolded sweetly. The familiar feel of her skin was transformed by his touch into something unknown and new. Passion transformed her body from something she never once took notice of, a functional vessel for gathering hay and milking cows, into an instrument for love. She understood, she had thought then, why the songs were sung, the wars were fought, why this knowing had been hidden from her until she was ready. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tysha and Tyrion, our names go together. He is mine and I am his and together he has become me and I have become him. We are one soul, not combined, but something new. </span>
  </em>
  <span>"Something new," Tyrion had mused, "as if just days ago I was another man and you another lady and now we are changed, intermixed. The way milk mixes with honey, never again to separate."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now her body tells her other secrets, difficult ones she never could have imagined even when being chased by bandits. It pounds the chant of pain to her like a drum, like the beat of the caverns of rock and gold under her back. She stares up at the roughly-hewn ceiling and thinks of nothing but how much it must have hurt the Rock to feel the blows of hammers and chisels to carve out this space. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Is there such a space inside me? Have they carved me out so?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She lies there. Time passes, an hour or little more. There is no sunlight in this part of the Rock. The blood in her wounds clots, her body quietly repairing itself, another secret task it must complete. Tysha is alive. Her mind is frantic with blurred thoughts and memories, her body is numb with pain, and she is unbearably alive. Her eyes trace every chisel mark above her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Girl?" a voice calls. Tysha is not so far gone into her fugue that she doesn't startle then cry as a spasm of pain hits her from her quick move. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hush, child. And do not move." The woman speaking kneels down next to Tysha. She is in Septa's garb, one pale white-blond strand escaping her gabled hood. The lantern she brings forth is almost too bright, and brings the deep wrinkles of her jowled face into relief. She is old, pock-marked, wrinkled, ugly and when she speaks she whistles through her few remaining teeth. Her hand is dry and warm where she presses it against Tysha's temple though, and it pulses with vigor. Carefully, the old woman raises her up, props her against the wall and begins to clean her with warm water and soft linen. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This is how I washed my mother's body before I wrapped her in her shroud </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thinks, and this is what finally draws sobs from her. The old woman lets her weep, not stopping her work to soothe her beyond one tight squeeze of the hand. She applies ointments to her cuts, she packs a warm compress of soothing herbs between Tysha's legs, she gives her a tisane of willow bark for the pain. Then she maneuvers Tysha out of her dress stained with blood and semen, and wraps her in a clean, loose gown of tightly-woven linen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the old woman works, Tysha comes back to herself inch by inch. The feeling returns to her skin as it is washed. Each limb is made anew. First she knew love, and that changed her. Then she knew pain, and that changed her. Now she knows care, and this is changing her from the stone she was an eternity, an hour ago. Her eyes register the dress and it jolts her back into today, now. The cloth is dyed mustard yellow, a shockingly bright color in this cavern. A color close to Casterly's gold, but deeper in hue, vegetal instead of mineral, warm like the Sun without the damp of mines clinging to it. Finally, Tysha's clean hair is stroked, combed and braided down her back. The old woman ties a kerchief of undyed cloth around her head and lifts her up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I will lead you out of this darkness," the old woman murmurs. "I will take you to a place you will be safe. No man will touch you, no cursed Lannister will find you. Follow me, little one, hold my hand and watch your step. Come now, let's leave this hell." The old woman's eyes are clouded grey with cataracts, but they are gentle and true. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so Tysha grips the old woman's arm with a strength that surprises herself. She is barefoot and her heels press firmly into the dust of their path. The old woman's lantern lights their way, her cataract-cloudy eyes still able to pick their way through the spiralling passages of the Rock. They meet no one else, but hear from afar — below their feet and echoing above their heads, and in every direction — the roar of the Sunset Sea, the pounding of hammers in the gold mines, and the sigh of the West wind. The final part of their journey they must crouch as the caverns shrink in height; then they are crawling, squeezed tight against slick rock; then they emerge from a tiny cove on a spit of sand not far from the road to Lannisport. The Sun is blindingly bright, the sea air is cool. They pass through a thicket of sage brush to reach the road, and the sweetness of its crushed leaves lingers on Tysha's hem. Tysha notices every flower, every leaf, every inch of the landscape. She watches the gulls circle and the brush sparrows squabble. A thin, spotted hare peers out from its warren with its ears alert and twitches its nose as they pass. A bevy of the small round seaside quails that live in the coastal scrub flutter around in the dust to clean themselves. They climb the gently sloping path over the seaside hills that are olive and dusty yellow and amber from the hardy vegetation that survives the salt air, but the drab colors seem enchanted today after the darkness of the Rock. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They meet no one else on the road. Tysha does not look back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the edge of Lannisport, before the hills and meadows give way completely to merchant stalls and docks, they skirt past the city's walls and towers and travel east, inland. And there, nestled at the bottom of a hill is a manse of stone the color of undyed linen, lit almost to yellow in the fading sun. At the entrance, a painted statue on a plinth of a beautiful woman, plump and yellow-haired, gazing mournfully at a squid held in one stone hand and the lion cub at her feet. Staring at the lifelike features, Tysha utters her first words since the soldiers took her: "The Mother," she says aloud. The old woman shakes her head and smiles. "She was a mother, but she isn't The Mother. I leave you here. Enter and seek refuge, find peace and health, my child."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tysha starts, "You won't go with me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The old woman places her left hand on Tysha's temple, her right still clasping her lantern. But no, the lantern is not there, or hasn't been since they left the Rock for sunlight and open air. How did Tysha not see? Instead it is a long distaff of carved weirwood. And suddenly Tysha understands, knows what will come next, and overcome with gratitude, she leans to touch her forehead to that of her guide. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The old woman says, "Find me, if you wish to learn. Find me, if you'll have me for a teacher. But first, you must know and learn for yourself."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The old woman straightens Tysha's kerchief and then turns her around to face the open iron gates to the manse. Tysha steps forward into the gates and onto the path that winds to the arched doorway of the house. Tysha does not look back. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Inspired by Tyrion noting how pigs were their witnesses at their wedding, and how pigs are related to imagery of Demeter/Persephone</p></blockquote></div></div>
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